picking and flicking emotional scabs since 2003

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Don’t kill books and don’t kill movies, you jerks!

I love Andrew Sullivan, y’all know I do, but his giddy anticipation of the fall of traditional media (newspapers, dead-tree books, movie theaters; the giddiness is my reading, of course; his actual posts on the matter are calm and diplomatic, for the most part) gets me all squirmy in the bad way and riled up. Not just because it will inevitably put me out of a job but because this notion of a democratized media landscape OF THE FUTURE is predicated on the notion that everyone will be able to afford all those fancy devices required to deliver content to your home in the media landscape OF THE FUTURE.

Ebooks are often inexpensive, sure, but you have to have some fancy device to read them on. And a data plan, usually.

And this idea that movie theaters will become obsolete because everyone has a badass surround-sound 3D TV that is the size of a small house and they can just have movies instantly beamed to their media centers? I realize I am, like, a born luddite most of the time, but I swear not everyone has or can afford the kind of media setup that would inspire people to abandon the movie theater altogether. Going to the movies, while ridiculously expensive, fucking rules. Maybe I think this because I only get to do it three times a year, and I am one of those people who does it for the moviegoing experience. And YES that experience includes bitching about the people in the next row who won’t shut up or stop texting.

I don’t know. I’m rambling.

The point is, there are people in this world who can’t afford at-home entertainment setups that will rival the current media delivery setup for books and movies, and as long as we live in a country with a glut of working poor as we do now, that isn’t going to change very much. A $12 movie ticket is still going to be a more likely splurge than a $500 TV. Right?

Oh my god. I am completely out of touch, aren’t I?

I have a 27-inch CRT TV in my living room, hooked up to cable WITH NO DVR.